Well, it does, and the precipitation phenomenon is a big part of the reason why:

During the winter months, the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Haida Gwaii Islands receive the most rainfall in North America. These storms turn to snow when they hit the coastal mountains.

The driest locations in British Columbia are just inland from the coastal ranges where a series of huge valleys run north and south including the South Thompson and Okanagan. These are some of the driest and warmest locations in British Columbia, since the storms lose much of their moisture passing over the coastal ranges and warm air is funneled up from the south.

The warming of the air over these valleys allows the atmosphere to pickup more moisture as the storms pass over the rivers and lakes of these Interior valleys, one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water. The air in these valleys is warm enough that the lakes and rivers remain largely unfrozen, allowing evaporation to continue through the coldest winter months.

When the storms reach the Columbia Mountains on the eastern edge of these warm valleys, they are again saturated with moisture. Most of the moisture in the Columbia Mountains, which feeds North America’s 4th largest river by volume, falls during the winter months, in the form of snow – usually the light, fluffy champagne kind.

To the north the Polar High, a shallow dome of high pressure and frigid air that moves south during the winter months, feeds cold air into the northern reaches of the north-south valley systems including the North Thompson and the Columbia River valley.

Super-saturated storms simultaneously slam into a huge mountain range and a wall of frigid arctic air directly on top of the CMH Heli-Skiing areas. Bingo - Take Flight!

This phenomenon is what makes the Mt. Fidelity weather recording station near Revelstoke, some 400 kilometres from the coast, the snowiest weather station in Canada. On average, the Mt. Fidelity station receives almost 15 metres (49 feet) of snow, and during one epic season the station recorded 23 metres (75 feet) of snow!

Any ski guide will tell you that while the Mt. Fidelity weather station gets a lot of snow, there are pockets in the region receive even more. Those spots just don’t have a weather station to record the totals, but we can go Heli-Skiing there…

Photo of the Gothics Lodge and a happy Heli-Skier, with a view out the window worth writing home about, by Topher Donahue.

Last week I had a chat with Joel Gratz, the legendary meteorologist who has turned the ski conditions forecasting world on its head with his snow-rider-centric websites, Colorado Powder Forecast and Open Snow. We were at the Denver showing of Take Flight, the latest visual treat from CMH Heli-Skiing where he shared some interesting (and exciting for powder hounds) trends in Colorado precipitation after the record-breaking Colorado floods.

Joel told me he’d been looking at historical weather data from the Mica Dam, just up the road from the CMH Monashees lodge and an area known for extraordinarily deep snow (and steep tree skiing) but that his results weren’t quite ready for prime time. Since then he dialed it in and this week he sent me a summary of his results.

To begin with, this year the water in the central Pacific is about average temperature, creating what Joel calls La Nada, as opposed to El Niño (warmer than average waters in the central Pacific) or La Niña (cooler than average waters in the central Pacific).

Joel found the following trends in snowfall at the Mica Dam:

During El Niño years, snowfall is 92% of average, and is twice as likely to have a below normal snow year than a normal year or an above average year.

During La Niña, snowfall is 111% of average, with almost no “normal” years and is twice as likely to have an above average year than a below average year.

During La Nada (which we have this year) snow is 100% of average, with equal chances of having an above average or a below average year.

By crushing more of the Mica Dam data into statistics, Joel found a few more interesting things:

In December, it snows an average of 61% of the days, with 13% of the days having at least 15cm (6 inches) and 3% having at least 30cm (12 inches).

In January, it snows an average of 56% of the days, with the same percentage of 15cm and 30cm days as December.

In February, it snows and average of 44% of the days, with 7% of the days getting 15cm and 1% getting at least 30cm.

Joel noted that Mica Dam is at the lowest altitude of any Heli-Skiing pickups and explained that “Even though it's at a low elevation, the snowfall trends should be similar to higher elevations, but the amounts at the dam are far lower.”

In his research, Joel came up with a couple of other interesting tidbits:

First, he learned that there is no trend in snowfall over the past 30 years, but that the late 60s and early 70s had average snowfall that was about 25% more than the snowfall during the past 30 years. This supports the observations made by some of the old-timers that I interviewed while writing Bugaboo Dreams, the book that chronicles CMH and the invention of Heli-Skiing, who said that in the early years it snowed more. They’ll be happy to learn that it wasn’t just the passing of the years that made the snow seem deeper – it really was deeper.

Second, and perhaps most fascinating to CMH and Revelstoke area skiers and snowboarders, is that about 75% of the maximum base (which occurs from February 1 to March 1) is accumulated by December 31. This may come as no surprise to fans of the cold smoke of early season Heli-Skiing, but it is a fascinating statistic considering how much it snows in the Columbia Mountains from January through April. Perhaps the part we forget to consider is that right now the snow is already accumulating in the Columbias…

If anyone knows when to plan a ski trip, it’s Joel Gratz himself, and he’s planning a trip to the tree skiing nirvana of CMH Monashees this winter from December 28 to January 2 where he will share some secrets of the art of forecasting powder – as well as schralp a bunch of the white stuff. Want to join him? Contact Brad Nichols, CMH Rep at brad@cmhrep.com or call (303) 378-9106.

Anyone who’s spent a bit of time with CMH Heli-Skiing falls in love with the beyond-epic tree skiing in the Columbia Mountains of Interior British Columbia. Powder so deep and soft that you can’t even tell where the last storm stopped and the new storm began. Pillow drops so fluffy and forgiving that even timid powder skiers find themselves happily catching air. Old growth forests with massive trunks perfectly spaced to inspire rhythmic fall-line runs. It's that good.

But there’s a problem with tree skiing and those constant snowstorms: you sometimes don’t get to see the spectacular terrain you’re skiing through.

Unlike Heli-Skiing in treeless mountain ranges like those in Alaska where you can't Heli-Ski when its storming, in Canada the contrast provided by the trees allows pilots to see well-enough to fly even in moderately heavy snowfall. Sure, occasionally it snows too hard for them to fly safely, and when the pilot says it's snowing too hard to fly, we don't argue. Instead, we rough it in the spa until the weather improves. More often than not, the skilled Heli-Ski pilots we work with from Alpine Helicopters, and their reliable, well-maintained helicopters, keep us skiing while it snows.

Yeah, the tree skiing with CMH is as good as skiing gets, but sometimes I crave a sense of place. It’s hard to believe, but there are weeks at CMH when it snows the entire time, and we ski all day every day. At the end of such a week I'm tired, happy, and satisfied as a skier, but as a mountain lover I do sometimes wish the snow had stopped long enough to give us a look around.

Luckily, mountain weather is ever-changing, and during the average week with CMH Heli-Skiing there is a load of fresh snow as well as spectacular mountain vistas. The average week entails both full-throttle tree skiing as well as expansive alpine ripping.

I spent one week at CMH Monashees when it never did stop snowing (yeah, it was some of the most fun I've ever had with skis on), and another at CMH Galena where it snowed all but a few hours (not sure if my skis were on the ground or in the air half the time). One morning at Galena the clouds parted for a few timeless minutes and I shot the following panorama of the Galena ski terrain. While the epic skiing we did that week certainly lives in my memory, this view enhanced my experience there immeasurably:

So next time you’re skiing with CMH, and the weather starts out clear, savor it; you might spend the rest of the week deep in the hemlock, spruce and fir forests, choking on face shots and giggling madly, with hardly a glimpse of the vast mountain wonderland surrounding you.

Heli-Skiing made the front-page on CNN last weekend with a story about Heli-Ski exploration in Pakistan. The plot is irresistible. Brice Lequertier, an Everest veteran who has skied from the summit, leading a team of world-class snow riders on an exploratory Heli-Skiing expedition to Pakistan’s famed Karakoram Range, home to the highest concentration of 8000-metre peaks on earth:

We’re turning even the most severe environments in the world into a playground, and I guess the only limit to what a Heli-Skier can do is the altitude limit that a helicopter can fly and land safely. The sky isn’t the limit, but it’s close.

I cued up the video excitedly, ready for a new frontier of skiing, but I must admit, it isn’t what I expected. The journalist from Walkabout Films who narrates the story is enthusiastic and attractive, the mountains are beautiful, the filming is well done, and the scale of the mountains is mind-blowing, but for some reason the piece leaves something to be desired.

To begin with, the skiing shown in the video, while inarguably hardcore at extreme altitude, is hardly inspiring. The skiers and snowboarders, who I have no doubt are great riders, make easy terrain look really difficult.

Maybe it is the unusual high altitude snow that makes the skiers appear to be having difficulty making simple turns, or maybe it's the lack of oxygen in their legs, but for whatever reason it looks like a ski video from the world’s highest bunny hill.

Even with the prevalence of digital capture, it is only every once in a while that we see something entirely unprecedented.

Growing up in the mountains, I always felt like geologic change was real, but not the kind of thing that happened in human time. I was in awe of how glaciers grew and receded, carving the mountains into the seductive shapes that inspires us to learn to ski and climb; but I always believed that I wouldn’t live long enough to really see the changes.

How wrong I was! Just a decade of working with CMH Heli-Skiing has been enough to see dramatic changes in the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies. During the same time, geologic change seems to be accelerating in many parts of the world, and with the phenomenon reaching beyond the niche circles of skiers and mountaineers, people are aiming cameras and instruments at our planet in new ways.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this change being captured "on film" is the Chasing Ice project. By using time-lapse methods the team, led by photographer James Balog, set out to capture geologic change in a human time frame.

The results, starting with a National Geographic Magazine assignment in 2005, have received global attention. The project has continued, and with cameras trained on galciers all over the globe, perhaps it is not suprising that something extraordinary would be revealed. Recently, a team of photographers in Greenland captured something that defies all our previous assumptions about geologic change.

While shooting a tongue of glacier that has receded as much in the past ten years as in the previous 100, they stumbled into filming the largest glacier calving that has ever been captured on film. This is not a time-lapse, but instead a city-sized section of glacier falling into the sea in little over an hour:

This video clip is perhaps the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen on film. It is part of the film “Chasing Ice” which is showing in North America and the UK during 2013.

Thankfully, here at CMH Heli-Skiing, we still have a vast wonderland of safe and skiable glaciers positioned right next to epic tree skiing; but I gotta wonder; will my grandkids be able to ski these glaciers too?

I talked to a professional snowboarder last week who said that the conditions in the Columbia Mountains were creating the deepest snow he had ever ridden - then it snowed for the next week straight...

Over the last 2 weeks, the Columbia Mountains’ snow machine has dumped nearly two metres of low-density snow at treeline in the CMH Heli-Skiing tenures.

Shooting photos in these conditions resulted in some exceptional images of the deep powder heliskiing experience, some of which I shared last week, but some of the best face shot photos have yet to see the light of day. It seems only fitting that the loyal readers of the Heli-Ski Blog should see them first.

This first shot shows CMH Galena guide Bernie Wiatzka, the ski guide with by far the most experience at the tree skiing paradise of Galena, doing what he does best - disappearing in a cloud of cold, white smoke.

It snowed between 10cm and 30cm every night, and the CMH Galena Lodge was as fascinating in these conditions as the skiing itself:

While much of the time, the snow was so deep that it was impossible to tell if the CMH Heli-Skiing guests were on skis or snowboards, occasionally everything would ride to the surface and the deep powder travel tool of choice would be revealed:

Conditions were ideal for big air, and the CMH guides were in good form suggesting the best pillow drops, not to mention the mandatory air on some of the runs. Here, the co-owner of The Source snowboard shop demonstrates one method of choking on a mushroom:

The CMH Ski Guides wear bright orange jackets to make them easier to follow, but in these conditions much of the time they were nearly invisible in a cloud of snow. Luckily, CMH Ski Guides, one shown here up to his earlobes in low-density powder, are exceptionally good at giving directions and nobody had any issues following them down run after run of the deepest snow imaginable:

Even the Bell 212 helicopter, known to be the safest helicopter ever made, seemed to enjoy the mind-blowing storm cycle:

Yesterday, the CMH Heli-Skiing area's snow reports showed up to half a metre of new snow over the last 24 hours - on top of what you see here. If you haven't booked a heli-ski trip yet this year, call your boss, your partner, and CMH Reservations at 1 (800) 661-0252. Not necessarily in that order!

La Niña. El Niño. Whatever. It always sounded to me like a soundbite for the media more than a real predictor of local weather. Sure, the temperatures of the ocean currents surely have profound effects on the planet’s weather, but how much they affect things like snow quality for heli-skiers is is another thing entirely. Or so I thought.

I was always a cynic of long term weather forecasting. Then last winter happened. I don’t think I’ve had more face shots in a single winter in my entire life. Nearly every day was a powder day. And all the North American skiers I talked to - from Aspen, to Jackson Hole, to Banff to Revelstoke - had the same experience. By February, I found myself asking: “Now, was this a La Niña or an El Niño season? ‘Cause whatever this is, I want another one!”

Last winter, demonstrated in the above photo from CMH Gothics, was a strong La Niña, so this year when August rolled around and I heard La Niña was in the forecast, I started getting excited.

Curious about long range forecasts, I looked at the usual places. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center anticipates above normal precipitation and snowfall in parts of the Pacific Northwest (a good thing for heli-skiers), with equal chances for above or below average precipitation for the southern US Rockies of Colorado and Utah. For skiers interested in weather predictions, it’s worth checking out NOAA’s maps of precipitation and temperature. The map below is NOAA's the predicted precipitation for the USA this coming December through February:

I asked Joel straight up: How much can skiers rely on La Niña/El Niño to forecast skiing quality for an upcoming winter? For example, would you base purchasing a season pass or a ski trip based on La Niña?

Joel replied: “Weather is only one factor I look at when deciding to purchase a ski pass or plan a trip. Meteorologists can somewhat accurately predict snowfall patterns during seasons with a strong El Nino or La Nina. But this season features a weaker La Nina compared to 2010-2011, so confidence in a snowfall outlook for the winter is lower than last year. Ultimately, the quality of skiing comes down to each individual storm, which aren't predictable more than about a week ahead of time.”

Gratz wrote an article on La Niña for Skiing Magazine and, while he’s not a big fan of long term weather forecasting as it relates to ski quality either, he did make this general - and if you’re a skier, highly exciting - statement: “For North America, La Niña has some predictable consequences for snow during the winter: it snows a lot.”

To give heli-skiers some real information on the World’s Greatest Skiing, I sent Joel snowfall data for the Columbia Mountains near CMH Heliskiing areas going back as far as the 70s. From the reports, he looked at for Mica Creek weather station near CMH Monashees, he had this to say: “In short, it looks like La Niña signals at least average or well above average snowfall.”

That's saying something - average snowfall in the Columbia Mountains is utterly epic. His quick study agrees with Environment Canada’s predictions, visible above in their precipitation forecast map for this coming December and January, which puts CMH Heliskiing areas in the red and white zone for normal or above normal precipitation.

This YouTube clip shows a woman walking out of a café in Bariloche, one of the most famous ski areas in the southern hemisphere, into a blizzard of ash. She says: “I thought it was snow, but it appears to be some kind of sand storm. It’s four in the afternoon and it’s pretty much pitch black.”

The Epicski blogs hold depressing questions like: “Anybody have news on how much ash is being dumped on Las Lenas or Bariloche? I fear this season could be a bust. :( Can you ski Vancouver in July or August?“

Others are more optimistic, with skiers posting hopeful comments about the cloud-seeding effects of ash in the atmosphere and anecdotal evidence of big ski seasons following big volcanic eruptions – but nobody knows.

However, in this era of real-time on-location reporting from anyone with a camera and an internet connection, things are often worst than they appear. Las Leñas web cams show a perfectly white ski area. The slopes look a little bony in early season, but there is no sign of ash. The Cerro Catedral webcam, trained on the upper slopes of the resort above Bariloche, one of the worst ash hit areas, shows slopes that are covered with white goodness, albeit not enough to ski on just yet.

It is perhaps a stroke of luck for the Argentine ski industry that they have not yet received much snowfall this season so the ash fell on dry ground in many places rather than on the snow. Had the volcano erupted six weeks later, after the snowpack was in place, the ski season might have been truly ruined. My best guess is that new snow will fall over the ash and within a few big storms even the worst hit ski areas should be up and running.

Any CMH heliskiers on a ski trip in South America who can share more firsthand information?

“You should have been here yesterday!” We’ve all heard it. Sitting on the ski lift listening to somebody go on and on. For weeks now, the CMH Heli-Skiing crew has been talking about how good the snow is in the Columbia Mountains. This photo, taken recently by the CMH Bobbie Burns guides on the 1300-metre Super Duper, suggests skiing is about as good as it gets around there right now.

To get a little firsthand perspective, I tracked down Kevin Christakos, Manager of CMH McBride.

TD: So what makes the snow this season so special?

KC: We have been getting steady cold snow for the past 6 weeks. This has taken the snowpack from below average in December to above average in a relatively short time.

TD: Is there a way you can describe the consistency of the powder skiing in terms of the average conditions over the last month compared an average year?

KC: Much of these past storms have come from the NW and been associated with cold air so the snow has largely been the deep cold smoke we all dream about.

TD: What are the old-timers saying about this year?

KC: That's interesting you ask. Last week Pierre Lemire was guiding here with me and we had a good discussion about how this year compares to years in the past. Pierre has had his nose in the snow here for the past 40 years and was commenting that this winter was somewhat reminiscent of the early 70's where there were a couple of huge snow winters; and similar to this winter those too had a slower start.

TD: How does having exceptional conditions affect the CMH heliski program?

KC: It makes everyone's life better, makes us look younger and has a thinning effect on women.

TD: Sign me up. Any good stories about the skiing conditions lately?

KC: We were closed for a couple of weeks at McBride, and when we returned I checked our field weather station and there was 2 meters of settled new snow on our storm board. It took me a good 10 minutes to dig the board up. All the next week every time I'd step out of the helicopter the snow was up to my waist, it's a beautiful thing.

Next week I’ll be sticking my nose in the snow at CMH and will let the readers of the Heliski Blog know if the rumors are true! But if you've been out there already tell us here how the snow is stacking up! And if you haven't, what are you waiting for?!

With near-record cold frosting windows across North America, I decided to look into a few of the techniques we always hear about for keeping our fingers warm, and find out if they are methods that really work or if they are just urban myths.

1. Mittens are warmer than gloves.Method. Keeping your fingers together rather than isolated makes a big difference. With today’s technologies, gloves work in surprisingly frigid conditions, but if you have a problem with circulation or get cold more easily than most, mittens are your best chance of staying warm – provided you don’t need the dexterity. Many experienced heliskiing guests use mittens because it doesn't take a lot of finger coordination to hang onto a ski pole and giggle.

2. Blowing on your fingers will warm them up. Myth. While the warm, moist air from your breath will initially feel warm, the damp skin will quickly cool again and the moisture from your breath will make your fingers and gloves colder in the long run. A better method commonly used by mountaineers is to put your gloves somewhere warm, like inside your jacket, (it doesn’t help if your gloves are lying on the ground, filling with snow while you’re warming your hands) and put your hands against the warm, dry skin of your neck. Even better, be really, really nice to your adventure partner so they’ll let you put your hands up their shirt.

3. Put cayenne pepper inside your gloves.Mythical method. This does stimulate circulation, but the trade off when you rub your eyes later in the day is hardly worth the slight increase in circulation. Putting chemical heat packs in your gloves works much better and doesn’t require first aid eye irrigation if you get your finger near your eye while adjusting your goggles.

4. Train your hands to stay warm.Method. Drive to work without wearing gloves, throw a snowball or two with bare hands, and generally push your own comfort zone with the cold at times when you will easily be able to warm up again. Getting your hands used to the cold at home will make the cold in the mountains less shocking and more manageable.

5. Drink some schnapps.Myth. While a sip of alcohol gives the sensation of warmth, in reality it cools your body overall because alcohol causes your blood vessels expand, bringing more blood to the surface where it cools before returning to your core. The dehydrating effects of alcohol compound the problem and the loss in coordination will be hardly worth the brief sensation of warmth.

Riding a ski lift can be a brutally cold experience. Put on your hood, stash your ski poles under a leg so you don’t have to hold them and pull your fingers into a fist before your hands get cold. Of course, if you’re heli-skiing with CMH, the ski lift has a heater with twin jet engines and you get to warm up between every run.